Tag Archives: John DeTarsio

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My mother-in-law has an amazing laugh, and, until recently, was pretty good at maintaining superficial conversation, over and over and over, again. She drove me crazy (in the way that Korean mother-in-laws do) long before Alzheimer’s hit. She’s eighty-two, loved ballroom dancing and doesn’t shake her butt anymore when she walks.

A couple of falls, followed by a medical crisis with her boyfriend, “The Colonel,” (who lived with her and took care of her) and she spiraled into needing twenty-four hour care. My husband went into a series of “lasts” . . . the last picture taken in her own home, and possibly the last one with him. We took her house keys out of her purse, she won’t be needing those anymore. We threw away her soy sauce, brown sludge that must have been in her refrigerator since 1999.

We took her to breakfast, and a (final) walk through the park next to her house. We stopped at a water fountain and my husband, who was trying so hard to squeeze every moment of now out of the day, held his mom’s arm. He gave her a penny and told her to make a wish. She tossed it and we watched that penny make its arc in slow motion. She didn’t have any wishes left. Fucking Alzheimer’s.

Catfish crew hard at work on John’s Birthday (that he unsuccessfully tried to keep secret).

Behind-the scenes production on MTV’s new reality show, Catfish, starring Nev Schulman and Max Joseph, was an all-encompassing, emotionally draining, huge-hearted adventure of intimacy, vulnerability and love. Or as I like to call it, one big Testosterone Festival. My husband, John, was the Director of Photography, and had way too much fun.

I don’t know what it was about Nev and Max, and John’s HOR, (Husband on the Road) Executive Producer David Metzler, that turned John into an uncouth, boorish teenager. I’m thinking the grueling schedule spent working together through the summer must have led to DBS (Deadly Buildup of Sperm). Or as the penis-less call it, Don’t Be Stupid.

I can’t order a deli sandwich with a dill pickle without it turning into a sexually charged situation. That’s what she said is so 2000-never. (I didn’t even bother to ask for help to caulk the shower.) John came home with some cockamamie (Oh my gosh, now I’m doing it) fist bump, with a sound effect *bleep* thumbs-up that just needs to stop. (He blames Nev.) He also seems to think he can say something ridiculous, honk my boobs, then add, “M’lady,” as if that makes everything charming. It does not.

I can only imagine what those poor guys, Nev and Max and David had to put up with, to say nothing of the rest of the crew. For the women on the mission, please accept my deepest apologies and know that John was not born in a barn.

Catfish premiers on MTV MONDAY, NOVEMBER 12 AT 11:00 P.M.Cat·fish [kat-fish] noun — a person who pretends to be someone they’re not,using social media to create a false identity, particularly to pursue deceitful online romances.